Monday, July 31, 2006

Is it just me, or did the word "awesome" make its way out of the everyday vocabulary of the typical cheerleader and into the everyday vocabulary of every person on the planet? Not that I'm hatin', or whatever...I say it too. I say it a bit too much for my taste, but much like the word "fuck" I find it fits into so many different applications that it's tough to NOT use it. I just don't remember it being so prevalent before the past couple of years, is the thing. There is nothing that makes me feel less professional than letting it slip when in a meeting, or on the phone with an interested tenant, or something like that. In everyday conversation with the Twin or my stepmom? Fine. When I'm finishing up a meeting about my current goals, both professional and personal, with my boss? Not so fine.

How do I make it stop, though? Is there an "awesome" patch out there I can look into, please?

I forgot to mention earlier that I received fabulously wonderful (see, no need for the a-word there) tickets to Wednesday night's Royals game through my favorite upper-management counterpart here at the company I live and breath for. AND a parking pass, which makes it all the more worth while. The boyfriend (i.e. pre-fiance) and I will be going to our first Royals game together that night, and having a blast of it I'm sure. We've been talking about going to one all year, and even though I'm sure the White Sox will kick the Royals' asses (but who really knows these days...), it will still be a great evening for us. Free date night! Well, mostly free, anyway. We'll still have to purchase the beers and sausages, of course. He's never been to a Royals game, so I will be "popping [his] cherry" as he so lovingly puts it. He's such a goober.

I'm not in the mood to work at. all. Can you tell? I blame the heat. Because, why NOT blame the heat? It's so fucking blameable, it is.

I have had two fast food meals today thus far, and have still eaten more healthy than most skinny people I know. And yet I'm the fat one. Hm. Weird, eh? Here's what I've had: egg mcmuffin (without cheese or margarine) and hash browns from McD's = 370 cals and 14 grams o' fat; grilled chicken sammich with a side salad with reduced fat ranch from Wendy's = 510 cals and 17 grams of fat (I meant to get the sammich without sauce, which would have taken it down to 470 cals and 13 grams of fat, dammit). Oh, and I snacked on some tropical trail mix at about 10:30 a.m. that I purchased at Walmart Grocery the other day. So add on about 150 cals and 8 grams of fat for that (there are cashews and macadamias and almonds in the mix). If I could just get myself to avoid the hash browns on a more religious basis and remember to nix the sauce on sammiches, then I'd be in perfect shape, I'd think!

Not that my body would agree with that, of course. Noooo. It wants me to starve before it'll lose any weight for me, it seems. Being 32 sucks in that respect.

Anyway, I've found that fast food can be ok in some ways. I'm not all about avoiding of it all the time, is the thing. They can make sammiches and stuff without the extra fat and calories from cheese and butter, and it still tastes ok. The reduced fat dressings don't taste that bad. And the nutrition calculators that most restaurants have these days where you can "customize" the selections you choose usually? Brilliant. LOVE them. (Here's the one for Wendy's. And here's McDonalds's. Oh, and here's Chipotle's. I like that one as well. I found one for Pizza Hut the other day, too, but they don't let me eliminate the cheese on my pizzas on their site, so it's not accurate, unfortunately. And I wrote them about being stupid for that option not being available on their website, and they haven't written me back at all, so they can fuck off IMO.) But I do avoid places like Taco Bell and the like, for the most part still. And I can't really bring myself to eat a burger from a fast food place any more these days, so I stick to chicken items really. The boyfriend used to work at a fast food place or two back when he was in high school. So, yeah, the stories keep me at bay from certain things, I'm afraid. It's been almost a year since I've had Taco Bell, and I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Ok, I need to get some other shit done now. Tomorrow will be a more straight-forward, even-keeled posting kind of a day, I'm thinking. Until then, happy reading...

I typed a post that sucked, and I will not subject y'all to that kind o' shit. Basically, the Twin visit went relatively (heh) well (although she might have a different way of putting it), this story sickens me, it's fucking HOT in Kansas City and I'm quite tired of it, the boyfriend gave me what he calls a "pre-engagement ring" on Saturday night...one which he fashioned out of white wire while he was thinking of me at work on Saturday when he had some down-time and which is a little tight on my ring finger, so I'm choosing not to wear it for now, I HATE the elliptical machine at the gym, and there is shit going on both in my professional and my personal life which I cannot chat about out here on my bloggy-blog, as it will get me into all sorts of trouble I bet. And I HATE when stuff is going on that I can't talk about! Sucks.

That is all. Perhaps tomorrow will be a better blog day. We shall have to wait and see...

Thursday, July 27, 2006

The boyfriend and I settled back to watch Project Runway last night after having finished some yummy turkey burgers (that were messy but oh so good...) that I made earlier. Conclusions made as result of the evening: I'm not good at making burgers, and some of the people they've allowed into the Project Runway contest this season clearly are not designers.

Ok, one of the people is not a designer, but rather, I think she had dreams of dressing Madonna up when she was 12 and listening to "Like A Virgin" on replay over and over again in her bedroom, and has simply carried on those same design ideas she had when she was 12 and is now trying to bring them to life. Here's what she was wearing last night:

She wears skirts like this EVERY WEEK (although, this week she took it upon herself to add those lovely combat boots...she needs to go on What Not To Wear, stat!), which leads me to believe the other designers must be blind, or they'd be making much more fun of her on a regular basis for actually considering herself to be a designer. And this week, it finally caught up to her. Her design looked exactly like all the stupid fucking bubble skirts she's been wearing every week on the runway. Look:

And the judges didn't make fun of her either!! This leads me to believe that they must all be blind as well (and now they've taken poor Vera Wang along with them on their blind journey which is really sad because she was so, soo talented before she became a guest judge this season), because LOOK!! Look at the photos above and tell me those skirts aren't total pieces of crap!! Vera said she "liked the draping" on the skirt that Angela had designed this week. I like it too...on a 12 year old!!! Fuck!

Also, if Laura could do me a favor and continuously wear turtlenecks every week, I'd be ever so grateful! I don't know if she thinks that she's more glamorous or a hottie because she wears items that accentuate her lack o' boobies, but it's gross looking, and I want to feed her a sammich every time I see her fucking bony chest across the screen while she's designing a dress or standing on the runway or hanging out having a glass of oj in the kitchen in the a.m. Bony. Chest. Not good. Also, her bright pinkish-red clown lips freak me out every time I see them. How does she not scare her 5 children with that get up? CHRIST!

I have to go scan things now...very busy today since I'm taking the day off tomorrow to hang out with the Twin. She should be arriving sometime this afternoon, and I can't wait!! WOOHOO! Twin's in town, babay...

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Last night, we settled in to watch a bit of "Munich" since it had shown up in our mailbox courtesy of Netflix yesterday afternoon. I was looking forward to it. I like Spielberg (is that how you spell his name? I'm being lazy...) flicks, and had heard good things about "Munich" for the most part.

We started watching it at about 7, as we ate dinner. We were planning on splitting it up a bit with some of the Sex & the City stuff on TBS (even though they were ones we've already seen, TBS had been advertising some sort of "extras" commentary for the episodes they were showing last night, and it didn't turn out to be anything like what I expected, so that sucked...), but we wound up watching it pretty much all at once. Which was kinda hard to take. I'm even a frequent potty-breaks kind of a girl (big shock, I know), and so we stopped it several times for me to be able to get some time with my bladder, and I still couldn't take the movie.

At first, I was kind of confused. All the subtitles and then no subtitles (I guess it didn't always matter what exactly they were saying in arabic/isreali/french/etc...), and then the subtitles were moving too quickly to read without pausing the damned DVD and I was all, huh? But then I settled in, and caught up, and figured out, and that's when we took the short Sex & the City detour. It started at 8, we got back to the movie at about 8:30-ish (I was on the computer for a bit, too...) and by the time 10 p.m. rolled around, I was done. DONE WITH MUNICH!! Sorry Spielberg. Too much to take all at once. All the shooting and the drama and the guy separated from his wife and newborn baby and more shooting and now they're being pursued by Lord knows who and can he sleep in his bed or talk on the phone without them blowing him up and AUGH!!!! AUGH, I say!!!

I went to wash my face and do my bedtime things before the movie ended. I figured I was missing maybe another 20 minutes, but there were still 40 left by the time I abandoned film on its ass. The boyfriend stayed on it and dutifully watched it through to the end. He told me that contrary to my belief that the film was obviously at least 3 hours long, it wasn't. It was really only 2 hours and 44 minutes long, thankyouverymuch. Ah...I can only imagine the ways that Spielberg would have loved to have filled those additional 16 minutes of time to make the movie a full 3 hour epic, if he could have done it. More blood and shooting, maybe? Perhaps some more useless time spent with the assassination targets? Maybe he should have had ET fly by on a bike to lift the spirits a bit near the end of the film.

To those of you who saw this movie in the theater, you deserve a fucking medal. Or at least a very long hug. Because, damn. There ain't no way I could have pulled it off. Might as well ask me to walk across burning hot coals.

To be fair, I was rather tired last night, but I don't think that was the problem. It was a really long, drawn out, very complicated and overdone film. And I think I really need to stick to more action adventure/comedy types of films from now on. Spielberg had me captivated by Schindler's List and even Saving Private Ryan, but these newer films he's doing? Nuh-uh. Done.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

I'm wondering if I'm alone in this boat, so help me out fellow bloggers.

How many people are annoyed when people make message board references in your comments section, such as refering to a prior post as a "thread?"

Also, am I the only one that gets annoyed when I see commenters refering to their comments as "blogs?" There's this crappy blog I read from time to time, and it has commenters from all walks of life, apparently, and when a couple of them enter more than one comment on any particular post, they tend to refer to their previous comment as a "blog," i.e. "In my previous blog, I didn't say 'blah blah blah' you idiot..." (They aren't very nice to each other on this particular crappy blog.) It bugs the hell out of me.

Am I alone in this weird annoyance?

**UPDATE: Ooh, ooh!! I thought of another one that bugs me! WTF is up with this whole proclaiming their status as 1st commenter on certain blogs? People have been doing it on The Superficial for a LONG time, it seems, and every once in a while, they start doing it on The Daily Dump as well. I'm not sure if it happens in the comments section for Waiter Rant, as I don't ever read the comments there, but I would imagine it might.

Who the FUCK CARES if you're first person to comment on a post? Who? Your mom? Seriously...just get over it. SUCH a dumbass thing to do...

As we speak (or really, as I speak, unless you're reading this aloud, in which case you might wanna get out more), the Twin and her girls are on their way out to visit us. It's a roadtrip, baby! The Twin has an extra puppy laying about from the litter her dogs had back in February, I have a friend that wants the puppy, so the Twin decided to drive the puppy out here instead of waiting until he would be able to fly out. I'm expecting the lot of them to get in town at about 7 or 8 on Thursday night, and I'm very excited that they're coming to see us!!

They're staying at the little hotel not too far from my house that I recommend to all out-of-town visitors, as my house is a bit too small for 4 girls and 1 boy to share even for just 3 days. Since they'll be at the White Haven, we will have a pool to hang out at when we want to, so that's nice. I'm looking forward to spending a bit of time in it on Saturday, actually. Hopefully, it'll be perfect weather for it.

My dad apparently spread the warning about the serial killers that are on the loose in Phoenix, since the Twin's route takes her through there sometime today. He was all gung ho about the trip originally, but then started expressing his reservations over the weekend, the Twin told me. She reassured him by saying that they will spend a minimal amount of time in Phoenix, if any at all, and then reminded him that she's the only one that makes any kind of effort out of any of my family members to come and visit me rather than expecting me to always go to visit them. It was exactly what I would have said to him had I been present for the conversation. He really pisses me off sometimes...but you know what? He's got a brother that lives in Washington state somewhere, and as far back as I can remember, he's never, ever gone to visit him. His brother goes to California on a fairly regular basis, but still...being a family member far from where the center of the family is located, I can speak with experience on that front now: it sucks that no one comes to visit me. I wish they could all see where I live, and see how great a town Kansas City really is. But oh well...I guess that's just how it goes.

So the Twin will be here soon, my nieces get to see where we live and they get to see Izzy again, and my friends here finally get to meet my other half.

Monday, July 24, 2006

I'm still trying to find some medical insurance, right? Something high deductable to basically cover me if, say, a branch of a tree should come down and knock me out, or what have you. I've looked at Humana, and they turned me down. They said their decision was based on my creatine and protein levels that they found in the urine specimin that they collected from me, but we all know that's total bullshit. They also said they wanted me to lose 6 pounds, and maintain the weightloss for 1 year before I reapplied. 6 pounds. Ok, I figure they aren't a company that values money very much, so it's time to fuck that shit and look elsewhere for assistance. I didn't even write them a letter of complaint, I feel it's such a major waste of time.

Meantime, here at The Company, we're all looking into a group insurance option that might work out. A bit expensive, but doable still...I am a bit worried about the underwriting that needs to be done, but we'll see. It's not moving fast enough at this point, though. So I need to find something to tide me over until we know for sure if we're gonna get it.

So I went to my insurance company I use for my car and my home. I met with the guy in their office, talked about what I'm looking for, went over the huge amount of info that they collect when one asks for individual health insurance, and left the office wondering if I would have trouble with the underwriting due to my recent abnormal pap and colposcopy issue at the gyno.

Over the weekend, I received a card from my insurance company asking me to call them, and let me just say now that I don't understand these cards. They've done this before, and I'm not sure what the fuck the deal is. These folks have my cell phone, home phone, and e-mail addresses, yet they take the time to print out a little postcard which they have to put postage on to send me in the mail asking ME to call THEM? Ok, fine. I finally call them today and smart-assedly ask them if they have phones that don't allow them to dial out, for some reason? The guy laughs and says that they apparently have outdated info for me, even though my cell number hasn't changed in over 6 years, and I was just there filling out new paperwork, updating addresses and phone numbers, and all that good stuff. Whatever. He has my cell written down now, and that's all that matters. But I'm irritated from the get go, is the point.

He asks me if I've heard from the underwriters, and if they explained what's going on at all. I told him I spoke to one last week sometime, and they asked me questions, but they didn't really do anything other than that. So he tells me that they would like me to go to my doctor to get weighed and measured for new, updated, shiny and happy weight and height measurements AGAIN.

I feel bad, but I kind of flipped the fuck out. I'm sure that these folks (the underwriters, I mean) have access to my records. I sign stuff when I visit the doctor saying they can release the info when asked for it, so I KNOW they have access to it, actually. When I went in to apply at the insurance office, I took in the documents that Humana had sent me from the nurse that came to my house and weighed me back at the end of April. I just went to the gyno about a month later, and the weight was about the same (give or take a few pounds, as scales vary so much from place to place), and those records are things they have access to. I am 5'5", and have been since I was about 18, and that's in my doctor records since that time, so what the FUCK do I need to have that done for again?

I told him that no, I am NOT going to the doctor again JUST so I can be weighed and measured one more time. They can use the records from the last time I went to the doctor, and move forward accordingly on that. If they don't want to give me insurance, fine. I'll find another option. If they want to send someone to my fucking house to weigh and measure me again, fine, I'll do that as well. But I am NOT going out of my fucking way to do something I have done at least 4 times in the last 4 months, and which they can see very clearly in the records they have access to in their wretched little hands. I don't care if they'll pay for me to go to the doctor. My weight hasn't changed more than 3 pounds either way for the last year, and it isn't changing again now. I told him to tell them to just put me down as weighing 195 if they want to, and charge me at the next tier, or what have you, I am so tired of this bullshit.

I really, really, really miss group insurance. When I worked for a company that had group insurance, I could've ballooned up to 300 pounds, and it wouldn't have mattered, I guess. It's absolutely, utterly, fucking ridiculous.

And I just needed to get that off my chest. Thanks for listening.

**UPDATE: Got a call from my insurance agent yesterday afternoon just before I left work, and he said he had called to yell at the underwriters for me. Apparently, they didn't realize that the Humana paperwork was only 3 months old, so they're fine with using the height and weight from that documentation. We're moving forward again, thank goodness.

Isn't it kinda worrisome that someone who's job it is to pay attention to details missed something as simple as when I was last weighed and measured by a certified professional? Hmmmm....

I am tahred. I’m so tahred, I can’t even think straight. I have the beepbeep.com commercial song stuck in my head, which I carefully try to avoid allowing to happen by switching channels whenever the stupid things start, but which I failed to do last night while I was watching t.v., as I was too lazy to grab the tuner which was aallll the way over on the coffee table, a whole 12 inches from the couch I was laying on. Why wasn’t I asleep if I was feeling so lazy and tired out, you ask? Well, Platinum Weddings was being replayed on We, and I wanted to watch both episodes that were airing, dammit. Sleep lost out to watching the idiot women walk around in their super-expensive, and yet ridiculous looking dresses. (To be fair, it was just the chick in the first episode that looked ridiculous…the second episode chick looked pretty cute. Her husband’s hair was another story…)

Last Friday, we had a quick little storm that moved through the area starting at about 6:30 a.m. By 7:00, the winds had picked up, and it looked rather ominous outside. By 7:30, the rain was pouring down, and the winds were more mellow. As I pulled out of the driveway on my way to work, I noticed that the winds had gleefully taken out a tree limb on the large tree I have left in my front yard, and it was lying across the new sidewalk in front of my house while still half-attached to the tree itself. Lovely.

So on Saturday, I went out to hack at the limb with my hack saw (the perfect tool for hacking, I’ve found), and assessed the situation from up close. I managed to clear a portion of the limb off the sidewalk, but the majority of it was still attached to the tree itself, and would need to be removed by climbing up a ladder and sawing it off. This seemed like a job I might be able to pull off, but the boyfriend assured me that he should help since he has insurance, and I still do not. Yesterday, he had to work in the morning, but would be home in the middle of the day before having to return to work again at 5, which made the middle of the day a perfect time for heading out to cut down some wood. I had been planning on just purchasing a large hand saw and going at the limb in that manner, but when we went to the local hardware store to survey their saw situation, we decided that renting a chainsaw would be the best plan of action. Power tools are fun…

We got sammiches for lunch, and returned home to eat and watch some t.v. before heading back outside. The boyfriend kept mentioning something about a nap. Huh-uh, I told him…he was gonna have to earn his nap first. This made him laugh for some reason, but I was serious. The boy naps more than most 3 year olds or 80 year olds I know. It’s not right. So we went outside, I got out the ladder and the proper tools needed for helping with the limb removal, and the boyfriend figured out how to use the chainsaw by cutting into some pieces of the limb that I had removed the day before and left on the front lawn for further "processing" with the hack saw when I was properly attired and prepared to do so. We had the dog out there with us, as she tends to freak out when we go outside and leave her inside by herself, so I stayed on the ground and kept her far from the ruckus of the limb removal the boyfriend was performing. I have a 20 foot ladder, and we had extended it to about 15 feet, so he was up pretty high, carrying a relatively heavy power tool, and having to hack at a limb that was hanging jaggedly off of the tree from an awkward angle on the ladder itself…it was a little scary. The boyfriend used to paint houses years ago, so he’s not afraid of ladders or heights or what have you, but the whole guessing-which-way-the-limb-would-go-when-it-fell thing made the experience more heart-pounding for all of us, I think. (Well, except the dog. She probably didn’t give a flying shit, really.) He cut into it, and then he cut into it some more, and then I asked if he wanted me to try to swing it a bit from the ground, which he said might be a good idea, but I quickly decided was not…again, not sure which way it was gonna go when it fell, and I don’t have insurance on the ground any more than I do when I’m up a ladder. So he started leaning on it a bit from the top, and it started cracking, and he shoved it again, and it gave this last big "CRACK!" before it fell from the tree, coming down on the middle portion of the ladder as it fell, and scaring the bejeezus out of me and the boyfriend as it did it. Fortunately, the ladder was more resilient than I ever expected it to be, and while the boyfriend somehow held onto the ladder, the chain saw, and his bowels all at the same time, he was still shook up by the possibility of what could have happened to him had the ladder not reacted to the falling limb so well, and he didn’t really talk after he came down off the ladder for a full 2 minutes or so. He got his revenge, though…he started cathartically cutting the large limb into smaller lengths, so we could stack them at the curb for eventual pick-up by the trash guys this week, or perhaps people that need some wood, or something. As he buzzed away at the limb, I watched as several huge black ants scurried about, trying to find their way to a safer, non-vibrating piece of wood. He stopped the sawing at one point, and I mentioned the ants, he replied that they were carpenters, and now I knew exactly why my tree was dying. (I’m gonna need to cut it down no later than this Fall, in fact. It’s dead, and there’s nothing worse than having a 30 foot dead tree standing in one’s front yard come ice-storm season. Another expense to add to the list of things I need to fix on the house? Aces.)

He chopped into one length of the limb, and suddenly exposed a hole in the center of it where the ants apparently had built their nest. Hundreds of ants came pouring out of the hole, freaking out, looking for a new place to hide. It was horrible. I just knew that several of those motherfuckers would find their way inside my house eventually, looking for a peaceful place to chew on some wood for a bit, and perhaps even build a new nest. (That reminds me…gotta call some exterminators today, dammit…) I found one of them last night on the door jamb between the kitchen and the living room. Unfortunately for him, Izzy found him about 2 minutes later after it had fallen to the floor, and she went ahead and ate him up, I think. I found another one…a BIG one…on my bathtub later as I got ready to go to bed and was having a final pee for the day. I went ahead and got my bug spray out to take him down. He was no less than half an inch long, I shit you not. Looked like a cross between a spider and a grass hopper and an ant, sort of. Here’s a page that shows what they look like up close. That picture on the main page? Yeah, that’s not too far off from actual size on these things. They are HUGE ants.

The boyfriend earned his nap, and I went to work on cutting down the rest of the limb for disposal. Took me the better part of two hours, but I got it all cut down and either bagged or bundled for pick up. I’ve had to dispose of limbs before (off of this same tree, actually…), so I’m pretty good at it by now, but it’s still hard work for sure. I’m feeling it today, baby!

Sundays are never easy days for me, is the thing, and this limb didn’t help much. The boyfriend and I were invited over to some friends’ house for dinner on Sunday night, in fact, and I had to turn them down because (a) the boyfriend works on Sunday nights and (b) I’m just too busy Sundays to go anywhere, and usually am quite tired by the time evening comes around after all the shit I do all day long. Plus I have to work the next day and all…so yeah, I don’t tend to get out on Sunday nights much. If the Chiefs have a night game once football season starts, then I usually head out to watch the first half, but only if all my chores are done.

Anyway, so I felt pretty bad turning this friend down when she asked, but here’s the deal: yesterday, I got up at 9, started a load of laundry, had some breakfast and hung out with the dog. What followed that is a big blur…lemme see if I can sort it out a bit. I pulled the sheets off the bed for washing, pulled out the Swiffer dry pads for dusting the shelves I haven’t dusted in a bit (just remembered that I missed the shelves in the bedroom, dammit. Gotta get to those tonight, now…), cleaned off several surfaces in the home of their clutter, Swiffered the bathroom floor, and then the boyfriend came home from his morning duties at work. We went to the hardware store, got sammiches, and I took a break for lunch, but then we got outside and worked on the limb, and while I had to take a break from cutting to return the rented chain saw at about 2:30, I got back to breaking the limb down at 3, and was done at about 3:45 or 4. I also took the time to spray the crabgrass and weeds with a grass & weed killer while I was out there, so that took me about another 20 minutes. Then the boyfriend went to work, and I got outside to wash the car at about 5, as I had waited for the hottest part of the day to pass before attempting to do so. In between all of this activity, I found the time to do two more loads of laundry and put the sheets back on the bed. After washing the car, I took a shower and ordered dinner (damn if I didn’t earn myself a pizza while breaking down that limb! Thin & crispy crust with no cheese, of course…), sat and watched some t.v. for about a half hour before I pulled out some old file boxes I decided to clean out so that the boyfriend has someplace to file the shit he needs to file. (I found that I had been saving records from the apartment I rented in Northern California back in 1999, for some reason. I threw a lot of shit away like that, actually…) When I was done with that, it was about 9, and it was time to give the dog a bath. By 9:30, I was exhausted and I was sore. I laid on the couch and watched some t.v., and finally went to bed at about 11. I never had a chance to work out, I never cleaned the dishwasher out (and this morning, I actually accused myself of being lazy yesterday for not getting around to doing it!), and now that I think about it, there are several shelves that I missed dusting when I had the Swiffer pads out to clean with. Oh, and I never got to the grocery store like I needed to. Shit. Gotta do that tonight now.

THIS is why Sundays are bad for me. You would think that I didn’t do anything at all on Saturday, but that was a different kind of work day. I took a dress to the tailors to have it taken in on top, and then I had an appointment at 1 to get my hair cut, and then I went home and had lunch and spent some time with the dog, and then took a quick shower and waited for the boyfriend to come home from work. We didn’t even get to go to dinner until about 8:30 on Saturday, he worked so late. But when I think about it, I did put off a lot of things on Saturday to do on Sunday. I do it every week. I guess I just think of Sunday as my "work day" for some reason. I’m really looking forward to football season…that’s when my weekends become more about me relaxing, and not so much about getting work done.

Wow. This post has gotten really long. Should I split it into two different posts? Nah. I’m not in the mood to do that. But I am due to get some work done, so I’d better scoot. Hope everyone has a great Monday!

Friday, July 21, 2006

I thought to myself in the shower this morning, "Self, it's time to go ahead and clean up the pubes." I shaved a bit, I trimmed a bit...I took some extra time to groom, is how it basically breaks down. As I did it, I thought to myself, "Why is it that I've let this get away from me? Why have I failed to keep this 'area' up a bit better? It's so nice to have it all trimmed back, cleaned up, and all that good stuff!"

And as I sit at my desk, no more than 4 hours after the cleansing ritual, I am reminded of why I have failed to keep it all trimmed up. Yeah, I'm itchy as fucking hell!!!Being a girl really sucks sometimes. (I guess the guys who shave their balls can relate, though, eh? Go ahead...relate away men.)

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Ok, so here's what I wanted to discuss today, prior to all the drama of the Hot Morning conquering my ass. (The AC is fixed, btw. And it will cost about $3,000, roundly, to replace it and my heater come Fall. Goodie. BUT, it works for now. Which is what matters, dammit.)

The boyfriend and I have taken to discussing our wedding ideas really openly. We both agree on a preference for an October wedding. We aren't quite sure where it will be yet, but he is willing to do a Catholic ceremony as long as he doesn't have to go to any of those weird classes they make most couples do prior to allowing them to marry in the Catholic church. (Don't know how we'd pull that off, but I'll look into it when required, I s'pose.) We want to have an awesome honeymoon, but first, we look forward to serving Framboise on tap at the reception. (We. Love. That. Stuff!) I have decided that my ideal dress will involve layers upon layers of chiffon, and I still plan on asking my dad to please pay for all the bridesmaid dresses as well because I hate the idea of making people pay for a dress they won't ever use again. Boyfriend came home yesterday with a bunch of location ideas for the honeymoon. We've been chatting about Puerto Rico for the most part (still somewhat exotic, but not too far and no passports required - easy peasy!), but his coworkers suggested Cabo, Peurto Vallarta, and a couple of other cool places to hit in Mexico as well, so he wanted me to consider them too. I told him it's a thought.

And all of this might sound well and good to everyone. It does to me, too, really. But there's just one teensy problem with all this wedding/post-wedding talk.

He hasn't proposed yet!

I'm an old fashioned kinda girl. I would have liked for him to go as far as asking my father if it's ok for him to ask me to marry him, but we both know that isn't really necessary, and I brought it up long ago and he almost laughed in my face. So that's scratched. But his father basically proposed to his mother by walking into a ring shop one day and asking her which one (of the ones he could afford) she liked the most. He never even asked her to marry him, and that's not the way I want this to work out.

I've told him that I really want a proposal. I know that I've taken some of the fun out of it, because we both know what the answer will be, but I still am excited about the how, when, and where of the actual event...I can't help it. And it doesn't help much that during several of the conversations we've had about this, he tends to pull his pants down, whip out his dick, and asks me to marry him, as though he's following through with the original idea he had to propose to me with his penis. I ignore him when he does that...he's such a sick fuck sometimes. Plus, he still doesn't have a ring, so that little joke of his just doesn't make much sense when he does it, I think.

Anyway, we talk about it too much, I told him that until he proposes we really should stop because it's starting to take the fun out of the thought of the proposal, but we'll have to see how successful we are with that idea. Because I really love trolling for dresses at The Knot. (I even put in my imaginary wedding date as October 20, 2007, since the damned thing wouldn't let me register for a user profile without an actual date. And now that I look at it, October 20, 2007 will be a Saturday. Hmmm...)

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The only other thing I wanted to say was that Project Runway was a great big clusterfuck last night. I cannot believe that Vincent got away with treating Angela the way he did when she was supposed to be his partner through that challenge. Admittedly, the bitch didn't even come up with her own design prior to meeting with the person she was designing the dress for ("I don't sketch..." she told Miss USA. Um, wha?...Aren't you a fucking designer, you retard?), but still. Vincent told her at one point that he needed her to just move no less than 3 feet away from him so he could work on his dress. And if he said, "I'm the team leader!" one more time, I was gonna reach through the screen and pop those smug, ugly-ass glasses right off his nose.

And then...THEN, they did the most horrible thing EVER. They kicked Malan off instead of Vincent or Angela. Yes, the boobs on his dress were a bit weird, and the color left a LOT to be desired, but he didn't deserve to be shipped home so soon! I know he's a bit creepy, but I think he grew on me in a creepy-but-doesn't-know-it-and-something-about-that-makes-him-kind-of-sweet way. Especially after he told the little story about how his mother treated his designs when he showed them to her at age 13. (She started to flip through them, and then threw the drawings to the ground, telling him he'd never be successful at such a venture. What a bitch.)

Net/net, I think the show made a terrible mistake getting rid of such an "artist" like Malan so early. That Vincent guy or even Angela should have gone first, bar none. Fuckers.

My AC broke at about 1:45 a.m. this morning. Boyfriend even went under the house to complete the temporary fix that had been working for us for the past few weeks since the last time this happened, but about a half hour later, I could hear the drip-drip-dripping sound in my hallway that told me that all was not well once again. I was up until about 3:30 putting down towels, sopping up the mess, drying out the filter (which wasn't too soaked, thank goodness...caught it early this time around!), and then trying to get to sleep again. I set the thermostat at 88 degrees, and the temp in the house this morning was only 80, so it obviously isn't switching on at this point yet. But the dog is in the house (with many fans pointed in her direction in a very dark and somewhat cool room), and if the heat in there climbs to 88, I'm willing to deal with a bit of a watery mess to clean up, if it means her little puppy brain won't melt. I feel really bad sitting in my air conditioned office right now...(sort of)

See, THIS is why I didn't buy a fucking $600 personal training package from the goddammed gym! I might need to buy a new AC today. Although, I'm pretty sure that I'd wanna go through some sort of crdit program that would give me at least 6 months without interest to pay it off. We'll see what happens. The thing is over 15 years old...it was bound to kick the bucket at some point, and from what the inspector told me back when I purchased the house, it only had a couple of years left in it anyway, so I'm lucky I've gotten this far. The heater needs to be replaced, too. It's really loud and doesn't sound happy in the winter, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I think.

God, this sucks.

So, I've got the AC repair people coming in between 10 and noon, hopefully, they only cost $39 for the service call, and they will hopefully figure out what's wrong with it and fix it today, so the boyfriend, dog, and I don't have to check into a hotel tonight. Although, it is supposed to cool down tonight when some thunderstorms move through. I hope, I hope, I hope...

Why can't these things happen during a nice streak of 80 degree weather, huh? (Yes, I know why they don't happen then...I'm just whining. Let me whine. I slept in an 80 degree house starting at about 3:30 a.m., ok?)

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

I’m very irritated right now. (Shut up.) I need to get it off my chest.

So, the trainer from the gym just called me, and said that there’s something wrong with the way that the payments were set up for my initial gym membership and the training sessions at my new 24 Hour Fitness that I go to. Apparently, the dimwit that sold me the membership entered the payments in so that I paid the minimum on the membership ($100) at that point in time, and then the rest of my first payment ($167.08) went towards the training sessions. Then another $50 will come out of the next payment (on the 26th this month) I pay them, and then the last $50 towards the training sessions will come out of the final payment I make on August 15th. So now that I’ve seen my trainer 4 times, the 5th time isn’t really paid for yet. So we’ll need to find another way to allocate the payments, or I can’t see my trainer again until after August 15th.

Ok, first of all, the way they explain it when you sit down to meet with them and pay up front and all that good stuff is that the training is included in the package. None of this broken-down-into-different-parts bullshit that I’m just hearing about now. And the salesguy that failed to mention that $268 of the total money I pay down goes towards my training sessions? Yeah, isn’t this HIS fucking fault, really? Shouldn’t he be sucking it up with their management and explaining to them that I deserve to see my trainer one more time ASAP, as scheduled, since he told me that my paying in 3 separate payments was an ok thing to do? I think so!

Anyway. So I don’t get to go see my trainer as planned tomorrow, which irritates me. And it irritated the trainer, too. He told me that had he known that this was how the payments had been allocated, he would have spread our meetings out a bit more, and not seen me twice a week, like we did last week, and then planned for again this week. He expects me to still come in tomorrow, and he said he’s going to be checking the system to see how often I’m coming in until we have a chance to meet again, but still. Gah. I wanna see the trainer! He’s evil, but he’s good. And I think I could have gotten a lot done much faster if I’d had to keep seeing him.

Which is where my next issue comes up. We were going to sit and chat about how much future sessions with him were gonna cost me after we were done working out tomorrow morning. So he told me today when he called me that we could still meet as scheduled tomorrow morning if I planned on moving forward with the purchase of more sessions after this. I asked, "Well, how much is the 10-session package, then?"

6. Hundred. Dollars.

Um, am I rich? No. Do I just have fucking money coming out my ears when I walk around, making people think that I can afford random, very expensive shit wherever I go? Not that I’ve noticed.

What the HELL is 24 Hour Fitness doing charging people $60 a goddam session (each session is about 1 hour long) for meetings with personal trainers? Let’s see…those personal trainers are probably already paid a base salary by the club, right? And then the club has already received money from me for my membership (which works out to being about $15 a month for the next 3 years), so they’re good to go there, as well. It’s not like I’m coming in every day, having a 5-course meal served to me for the all inclusive price of $15 a month! I am using their machines for about a half hour maybe 2 or 3 days a week, and then showering with the water they provide me when I’m done with my workout. So I’ll give them that. But FUCK!! Are they paying those trainers even 40 of those dollars per session? Doubtful. So where the HELL does the $60 go?

Ridiculous. And now I’m pissed. Even if I purchase just 5 more sessions up front, it’s still $300, so that’s still $60 per session. And that really won’t get me very far, anyway, if I’d prefer to keep meeting my trainer twice a week, which seems to work out really well for me overall. If I DID purchase 5 more sessions, I’d definitely spread it out over 5 weeks, that’s for damned sure.But $300 for 5 more sessions? You can’t hear it, but I’m whining over here. I’m whining and I’m pouting, and I’m making all kinds of I-cannot-believe-those-mutherfuckers faces over here. I’m actually a little bit in pain from this issue now. My body hurts. Thanks a fucking lot, 24 Hour Fitness. Assholes.

I maybe could’ve done $400 for 10 more sessions. That’d be somewhat reasonable, I think. Possibly even $450. But only because I hate my boobs as much as I do right now, and the fat that pops over the top of strapless dresses and shit when I put them on. Hate that stuff. So $450 might’ve been doable.

But not $600. No way. I mean, if I get sick, if the dog gets sick, if something in the house breaks down, I need my savings to cover it. I’m already using my health coverage allowance from work to cover the payments of the new membership at the gym as it is!

(The whining is continuing, it seems.)

I’m trying to convince myself that I have the power to do this. I have the knowledge and the power and the tools to get past this extra fat I carry around with me daily. I can meet with the trainer one more time in August as a follow-up to track my progress, and THEN make a decision as to whether $300 for 5 more sessions is something I wanna consider.

I just don’t understand why this shit must cost as much as it does. Seriously. Don’t they realize how many more people they could bring into the personal training program if they made it a more reasonable price for folks? Hell, I might even be able to pay $150 a month for 1 session per week for the next 6 months if that’s something they’d be willing to consider. C’mon…what would a business rather have? No money at all? Or a guaranteed $150 a month from a customer. If I were a business, I might at least consider the customer’s proposition.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

The dog was fine last night...back to her old self, really. She's been looking bored lately, and while I feel badly about that, I can't do much about it. Can't afford a playmate for her (and don't really want another puppy to look after, to be honest), and I play with her and pet her and do all the things I'm supposed to do with her much of the time, but I can't just pay attention to HER all the live long day, right? That'd be ridiculous. She just needs to learn to be self-sufficient and happy on her own now and then. Without resorting to chewing up the supporting leg of my bed, I mean. We don't let her in the bedroom any more, and I'm thinking that's where a lot of the wounded-and-sad,-woe-is-me-I'm-a-bored-puppy looks she shoots me from across the living room are stemming from.

Having a pet is fun.

Worked out this morning with the trainer (whom I'm considering continuing to see after my initial 5 "free" sessions end this Thursday, but we're discussing price for future sessions at that point, and I don't know if I can afford to shell out another $250 - $300 right now, so we'll see...), and got my ass on the scale at the gym to see if the one at home was being wonky. Nope. I've definitely gained weight since we've been working together, which makes sense (sort of) as we've been doing more strength training than I had been doing for the past, oh, 6 years or so. I mean, cardio is all good. Got that down. Working on new and fun ways to keep cardio from getting boring (swimming, elliptical thingy, treadmill on an incline, possibility of hitting the kickboxing class at the gym tomorrow night to see whether I like it or not, etc...), but the weight-lifting shit? I never have liked lifting more than what's comfy for me to lift, and it kinda defeats the purpose if I don't do that, really. So I'm thinking I'm gonna have to keep going to see the trainer. Or else I won't do what I need to do to tone up. We have fun together, though. For example, this morning, we harassed another patron of the club. She was switching between two machines, and was all pissed when she came over to use the one we were gonna use, and we had put our own weight and handle-bar thingies on it and all. She had left her water bottle there as her little place-saver, but to be honest, that just made me wanna drink it as it looked like it was much colder than mine was at that point in time. She said, "I was using that machine!" My trainer didn't even balk...just told her that there was another machine that functioned very similarly in another spot, and then turned back to show me what he wanted me to do. After she walked away in a bit of a huff, he was all, "You can't use and try to dominate two machines at the same time. Not when it's busy like this. Please..." He's a cool guy.

Now I'm finding it difficult to stand up and walk around after sitting for prolonged periods of time, though. It's kinda weird, as we didn't do much of anything new today. But my knees are all pissed off anyway. It'll go away by tonight, I figure, but FUCK! Working out sucks!! Why can't we all be born into bodies that metabolize the food we eat at a consistent pace so that working out isn't necessary, huh? Is this an Adam & Eve fuck up? I'm soooo gonna have a sit-down with that bitch when I get to heaven. (Or would she be in hell, though? Sheit, I dunno. Since she's likely fictional, I guess it doesn't really matter all that much.)

You know what? This post is going nowhere. I think I'm gonna go ahead and call an abnormal pap, and let y'all go. Maybe I'll have something better tomorrow. Or later today, even. Right now, I'm too distracted by work and having to pee and wanting more Diet Coke and stuff. So, abnormal pap! Bye!

Monday, July 17, 2006

I've totally had a shit morning. Just weird, more than anything else. It started off normal enough...woke up at 6:30 to go swim at the gym. Did some laps for a half hour, went home to shower and clean up before the handyman got there. So here's what happened next:

Let the dog out of the crate. She mosied outside while I took out the trash. Suddenly, the dog is making noises like she has been lit on FIRE, and she and I go tearing into the house at about the same time, me from the garage and her from the yard. She is running about, making this high pitched noise that has me thinking that she has had half of her body chewed off by a wild animal she ran into in the yard while trying to relieve herself for the first time today. But I can instantly see that there isn't any blood, so she's fine, but she's kind of biting at her ass as she scoots around. Has she been bit by a garter snake? Has she gotten a really, really mean tick in her bum? I escort her outside so that her yelling doesn't wake up the boyfriend (who worked really late last night, then came home and spent way too much time on the couch sucking in useless t.v. instead of sleeping until 2 a.m., so he's tired, I think...), and try to see what's up. I see that she has a piece of poo stuck to her bum. That's it. A piece of poo. I go back inside to get a paper towel, the boyfriend is now standing in the doorway of the kitchen trying to figure out what's going on, the dog then runs back in the house to his waiting arms, and he holds her still while I remove the piece of offending poo from her butt and send her on her way.

JESUS! I seriously thought she was on fire. Seriously.

So. Then the handyman calls and says that he's gonna be running a bit late. More like 11 o'clock instead of 10, if that's ok. Sure, I tell him. I have the whole morning off, so it's fine. I go to get a Diet Coke, as I'm about to die from lack of caffeine. Especially after the Great Poo Caper of 2006 that happened about a half hour before.

When I get home, the dog is looking really depressed. She keeps dragging ass all over, and tucking her tail under her, so I decide to escort her outside for some assisted pooing, if need be. She readily heads out with me, and procedes to poo a bit, but then hops up on my leg with her front paws, looking at me as if to say, "Please, please save me from this evil activity that is happening in my hind region!" I keep encouraging her to do what she needs to do, she keeps pooing a little and then hopping up on me some more, and then finally, she seems done, but there's a bit of poo left on her again, so I go inside to get a wet paper towel to help out again. But when she follows me into the house a couple of seconds later, she's clean and fine. No help needed, it seems! Awesome.

She continued to look depressed and draggy though. I figured her body is finally trying to push through that bit of ear she ate off of her plastic mouse last week, and/or it's trying to deal with all the grass she eats when she's out in the yard. Either way, it's her problem, not mine. I certainly don't eat shit like that, dammit. She's just gonna have to deal.

She got over her depression pretty quickly once the handyman arrived, though. Our dog has turned into Kujo when it comes to random visitors, whereas she used to shrink away like the docile creature she usually is. Apparently, with her pre-teen doggy years comes the change in behaviors that I absolutely love to deal with. Namely, loud barking and pissiness. Great. Lovely. Ear-piercing...

I finally put her in her kennel, as she is not calming down in the least, and I'm afraid she's gonna have herself a pre-teen heart-attack, for fuck's sake.

In all this confusion, I'm trying to be pleased that I finally have new blinds up in the bedroom, that my ceiling is no longer falling down in the garage, and then I pay the handyman, and get ready to head out the door to work, but first I gotta pee. The boyfriend has waited a bit before actually climbing into the shower, though, so I have to decide to either pee while he's in there with me (which I have never done) or just hold it and waste time sitting and waiting for him to get out of the damned shower. I finally decide to go ahead and break free of my prudish-peeing behavior, and I pee while he's in the shower. He promises not to peek, and then he says, "You know, if we plan on getting married eventually, it makes sense that we might be in the same room now and then while the other one is peeing." (He does it all the time. So really, he just means me when he says this.) I try to explain my complex, we chat all through my peeing, I feel better, he probably is thinking "FINALLY!", and I get out the door to head to work.

Halfway there, I realize I'm still wearing the flip flops I was wearing all around the house as I puttered with the dog/handyman/boyfriend all morning. Great. That's classy. Then I realize I left my bag o' stuff there that I needed to bring with me. It has snacks, bills I need to note, and two letters/checks the boyfriend wanted me to send for him from the office, as the mailman had already hit the house before he had them ready to go today. I'm really on my a-game today, boy!

Now I'm sitting in the office, catching up on all the crap I needed to get done all morning, dealing with a random headache that comes and goes intermittently, and wishing it could be Tuesday already. I'm really looking forward to going home and seeing what the dog has done while in her kennel after the boyfriend and I left for our respective jobs mid-day. And I'm thinking of sabotaging the workout I did this morning by ordering a fucking pizza tonight because I'm just so tired of this day.

But I won't. Because I really don't want it. Seriously. Not a bit. (Plus, I'd probly eat the whole thing by myself if I order it. That'd be very bad, indeed...)

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Taking the morning off tomorrow (Monday) to deal with the handyman that will be coming to my house to do the things the boyfriend and I can't do ourselves. So I thought I'd post this update now...

Anniversary went swimmingly. Had dinner, then went for drinks and to chat about random topics for several hours, met up with old friends we hadn't seen for a while, and then came home to have some champagne I'd picked up earlier that day. Boyfriend is fond of taking pictures of us kissing...here's the latest one:

Hope everyone had a great weekend! (Jeezus, my cleavage goes pretty far up my chest, eh? It's not s'pose to do that is it? Fuck...Oh well. At least my hand looks amazing.)

Friday, July 14, 2006

I saw this story a couple of days ago. Maybe it was just yesterday morning...I can't remember. Anyway, I didn't plan on saying much of anything about it, seeing as I didn't want to seem all judgmental, or what have you. And then I thought to myself, Am I kidding? So here we go...

These people have been blessed once by a set of triplets. They already have two older daughters as well, although the news story doesn't make it clear as to whether the woman had the girls with another partner before she met her new, insane husband, or if they are their children as well. Now they have a set of quadruplettes, and I have to say, if I were this woman, I would be wondering just what I did to piss off God so much that he has to smite me so.

I realize that to many people, children are a blessing. I like kids a lot, don't get me wrong. But there's a limit to what's reasonable, I think, and this family passed it long ago when they decided to get fertility treatments just so that they would have more kids all at once. Maybe I'm wrong. The article didn't outright state that they were unable to have children without the in vitro method they utilized 3 years ago for their triplets, though, and so I'm assuming that they didn't necessarily need the treatment in order to have children together. I mean, the woman already had two older daughters, so we know she's fine there, and now we know the man can pack sperm that are powerful enough to create a litter of kids all on their own, so there's that proof. I'm thinking that the in vitro was done specifically to provide the guaranteed outcome of triplets when they did it 3 years ago.

So now they get prego again, and the woman has 4 babies, and miraculously carries them almost full term, and they're all very healthy weights and normal lengths and all that good stuff, and the mom is doing fine (except for freaking out a bit, which she admits in the article, and hell if I don't blame her), and I'm left thinking, "Aw! That's great...it's not often that you see a bunch of babies born like that and being so healthy and all. Nice!"

Until I read the following sentence: "The 11 family members will be living in a one-bedroom apartment in east Los Angeles."

...

That's stunned silence from me, in case you weren't sure of what those 3 dots mean. I had to read back through part of the article again to make sure I hadn't switched to some sort of parallel universe or something. But no, it's the same universe. And these people are raving idiots.

I don't know why I'm surprised. I just...I don't know how to handle the thought that there were already 7 people living in a one bedroom apartment, and 4 of them are either adults or close to it, if this woman is counting on her 2 older daughters to help out with the babies...they must be close to adulthood, if that's the case. They must at least be close to being teenagers, so there's a new kind of hell right there. 4 newborns, 3 three-year olds, and 2 almost-teenagers living in one bedroom and one living room? Where's the fucking partidge in a pear tree gonna fit?

Apparently, the triplets aren't feeling too good about their mother having 4 new babies that will be living with them. The article says, "But at first the triplets weren't sure if they wanted the extra siblings...'They wanted one baby and no more' [their father] said." Yeah, DUH!!! Maybe they already hate living in such a small fucking space with 4 other people, you retards!

I don't know if this is going too far, but I'd call this a form of abuse. Abuse for the mother, abuse for the other children in the home, abuse for the poor damned neighbors of these people...

That father needs some sort of counseling for being so retarded as to knock up his wife when he can't provide more than 800 sf (I don't know how big it is, really...just hoping, for their sakes...) of space for his 9 children to grow up in. Idiot. Dumbass. All kinds of names apply, really. Cretin. Fucktard. I can go on all day with this...but basically, I don't think that he's in his right mind.

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Happy Friday, everyone! I'm childless, and I'm feeling good!!

This weekend is my 1 year anniversary with my boyfriend. Tomorrow night is the anniversary of the 1st date we had, when we went to go see Wedding Crashers, and I wasn't sure about what was gonna happen with him, and I was surprised that he even asked me out in the first place, and I was so happy that he was smart and funny and it totally shocked me that it worked out the way it did over the following weeks after that first date.

Sometimes, the person you least expect to be the one for you turns out to be just that, I guess.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Don't know if anyone noticed, but I recently installed a site meter on my blog. It's been interesting to look at over the last couple of weeks, and I seriously didn't realize that I had the traffic on my site that I do. (Not that it's super-impressive, really...I don't have anything to compare it to, so I'm just guessing that it's better than crap and not as great as say, Dooce...) For example, this week, I've apparently had close to 1,000 page views on my site. Not sure what that means, exactly, even though site meter tries to explain it in their help section. I'm an idiot when it comes to understanding internet language, apparently.

I love to look at how people found me. Sure, the majority of the stats are "unknown", but every once in a while, it shows that it paid off for me to go through all that stuff I had to go through to get on the bloglist for Jason Mulgrew. I have some pretty stupid accidental stumbles by folks that looked up a random phrase on google or whatever, but now and then some entertaining ones pop up.

But my favorite thing to look at is where everyone is at. For example, who is it that reads me that lives in King of Prussia, PA? And that reader in Sitka, Alaska...how's the weather up there this time of year? Isn't this when the sun is out almost all the time? I don't know how I would deal with that (although, I've heard that heavy curtains work rather well...), and kudos to you for being able to handle it...Secaucus, NJ? Is that near New York? Not that it matters, as I don't really know my way around there, or anything...

It's fun, is my point. I like seeing when the Twin drops by (it says you're in Mission Viejo, btw Twin...wonder why RSM doesn't have it's own little register...), and if anyone in Houston is lurking, and trying to guess if it's Ms. Pants or the older sister's boyfriend that's reading whenever it pops up. Hell, someone in New Delhi, India dropped by this morning at about 5 a.m. briefly after they looked up the phrase "working of an earthquake alarms". Lord only knows if they actually read that post, but hope they enjoyed it if they did!

I only have a half hour left in my workday, and it seems like it'll take forever to finish up! I wanna go home, kick off my shoes (and my dress...I'm very talented that way), hang out for a bit before starting dinner, and then relax and watch a good 3 hours of Arrested Development with the boyfriend when he comes home. (Season 2, discs 1 and 2 arrived yesterday in the mail! Eeee!!!) But I can't do it until 5 p.m. gets here. Hurry up, clock. Hurry, hurry, hurry, dammit...

Oh, and those of you that lurk, don't worry...I won't call you out. I notice that half the people that visit my blog don't really comment, and that's ok. Even if y'all might make things a bit more interesting around here with your additional wittiness and sarcasm/insight, I understand that sometimes, there just might not be anything to add to my random thoughts and general foolish chit-chat. But I'm glad you stop through to read it anyway!!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

My dog has taken to chewing on her small plastic squeaky toys in a very particular manner: she's clearly only interested in ripping off the parts that stick out off of the main shape of the toy. It started with her little crab squeaky toy, which I affectionately refered to as "crabby." Crabby passed on when Iz went ahead and chewed off his right set of "legs" Saturday evening. I managed to catch her in the act of chewing on the legs she'd just removed, and was able to pull them out of her mouth before she swallowed them. I threw poor Crabby and his removed legs in the trash, and we pulled out the dinosaur squeaky toy to replace him. (The boyfriend brought home this assortment of small chew toys back when the puppy was new and only 5 pounds and still too small to even get her mouth around Crabby sufficiently. He initially litered the floor with ALL of the 6 chew toys at once, but I quickly curbed that. No need to have such a mish-mosh of toys to overstimulate the puppy, right? Right. I'm such a good mom...) I tried to find an appropriate name to refer to the dinosaur as. I hated "Dino" and as it was a mini-brontosaurus, I tried to call it something along those lines, but never could manage to find a good short version that pleased me. No matter...the dinosaur's tail was gone by Sunday evening, so into the trash he went as well.

All this time, Izzy has had 3 toys in her crate to play with while she's in there when she gets bored, or feels like teething, or whatever, one of which was this little mouse squeaky toy (a.k.a. "Mousey") as well as another animal that I can't remember...she dislodged the squeaker in that one a few weeks ago, and I threw it out then as I was fearful of her getting the small part stuck in her throat if she happened to swallow it on accident.

Ha! "Accident." I should have known better even back then when I was still sort of ignorant in the ways of puppies - she was just working her way up to being a normal dog, and was trying to tear apart the toy from the start. Dogs are so weird...

Anyway, Mousey had ears that stick out off his head, and I knew it was only a matter of time before one of them came off. Last night was that time. Unfortunately, I didn't keep a close enough eye on her as she worked on him, and by the time I discovered his right ear was missing, she had already swallowed it, and was working on the left ear. I went ahead and tore that ear off, trimmed all the bits of plastic that seemed like they were gonna fall off in her mouth with any more chewing, and gave Mousey back to her to play with. I felt kinda bad about just chucking all of her favorite toys prior to that just because they were slightly damaged. I dropped him on the kitchen floor in front of her, and she wagged her tail, picked him up with her mouth, and then dropped him again immediately, looking at him as if to say, "Who the fuck are you?" And then she trotted off to the living room to play with her 14" rope instead.

Apparently, those ears made little Mousey who he was. I went ahead and threw his ruined little plastic, formerly squeaky carcass into the trash.

So now, she won't eat. Probably because her poor little 11 pound body is trying to process a whole plastic mouse ear, and it's not like they make those chew toys as flimsily as they used to. Uh-uh. That thing was strong and thick and not easily-digestible, I don't think.

Dogs are not very smart in that respect. She seems fine, though. She just probably isn't feeling all that great, I'd think.

Anyway, I'm running out of toys, the dog's teeth are clearly getting stronger and stronger, and apparently only certain types of toys will be safe to give to her from now on. No more plastic with bits that stick out.

I'm just having a good day today because (a) it's taco night at my house, (b) as stated in yesterday's post (which received all of zero comments, so I know how riveting it must've been), tonight is an AWESOME t.v. night, and (c) I slept for about 8 hours last night. 8 HOURS!!! It felt really, really, really good. And so I feel pretty fucking good today because of it. DAMMIT, I love sleep!

Don't you hate it when your post doesn't really lead anywhere in particular, and you're left trying to figure out an appropriate ending for it? I do. I think I'll start calling that phenomena "abnormal pap." And now it all wraps back 'round as it should, dammit...

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

I've got nothing for y'all today. It was a busy morning of shit being thrown at me from every angle, the computer failing to cooperate at crucial moments, and me trying to converse with folks that can't do so due to privacy violations because my boss isn't able to call them himself, for some reason. (I have to deal with all his insurance shit, remember? The privacy crap is exactly why I hate that he relies on me to take care of it all for him. "Pretend to be my wife, or something..." he says as he dumps new invoices, notifications of claims, etc...on my desk. Hate to tell you, boss! Your wife wouldn't be able to get through to chat with them, either! Plus, I'm kinda sure they know that he doesn't have a wife...jeezus.) It's been gruesome.

But now it's afternoon! Yay!

I still have nothing, I'm afraid. But I thought I'd get everyone caught up on what I'm watchin' on tay vay these days, since I know you're all dying to know!

First of all, that new show Psych on USA is pretty much all it's been cracked up to be. Very silly, loads of fun to watch, and although I'm not quite sure what the point is to the sidekick character at this juncture (he was really not important for any reason outside of witty banter and creating funny situations in the pilot, IMO), I'm sure it'll become more of a solidified character as the season progresses. Loving it, so far. It's on on Friday nights at 9 p.m. CST. (I used to watch Most Haunted on the Travel Channel every Friday night, but it's wrapped back around to re-runs at this point for me, so I need to wait for a new season to start before I can watch any more of those. Repeated visits to the same ol' decrepit manor houses, pubs, and castles gets old, especially when I already know when the hostess is about to scream and run, or a table will actually tip during a table-tipping circle, or what have you. Ghosts bore the shit out of me unless it's completely new, I'm afraid. Ha! Get it? "...I'm afraid." I'm so fucking silly sometimes, it cracks me up...)

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares has been, by far, my fave new show of the season. The boyfriend and I love watching this on Wednesday nights, and plan the evening around it, if possible. (As sad as that may sound, it's just the way it is. Deal.) I love Gordon Ramsay and his firey, crazy-ass, fucked-up behavior. This show puts him in an entirely different light, though. He's compassionate, and comes off as benevolent and almost friendly at times. He goes to restaurants that are struggling to turn a profit, checks out their kitchen, dining room, and staff, and then makes his own suggestions about what they should do to turn things around. His language is brash, and his techniques can be tough-love at times, but almost every episode has wound up with a successful and healthy restaurant in the end. Only one went sour, and it seems that was because the owners were really just "playing" restaurant without knowing how a restaurant as a business really works. Anyway, love this gorgeous program. Will watch it until the cows come home, if allowed. It's on at 8 p.m. CST on Wednesdays.

And that's just perfect timing, really, since this week is the week when the 3rd season of Project Runway starts, and it's on on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. CST. Yay! Something to follow up Gordon with each week! My life is almost complete...now if I can just find that $30 million, a perfectly tuned Bentley and a driver, a home that isn't too big or too small, and a long-term voice over deal, I'd be one happy bitch.

Ok, so that covers two nights of the week. What do we do the other 5? Well, Monday is usually devoted to Tony's "No Reservations", but last night was a re-run so, meh. Hopefully, they'll have some new episodes coming up in the next few weeks. Tuesdays used to be all about Sex & the City re-runs on TBS, but now they've wrapped back around and we're stuck watching ones the boyfriend has already been exposed to, he isn't interested any more. I'm fine with that, though...I don't really feel the need to watch them all over and over at this point in my life. Once or twice is enough, thanks.

We've covered Wednesday, so yeah.

Thursdays haven't quite happened yet. Years ago, it was Must See TV night for me, but even ER doesn't do it for me anymore, so I've been waiting to have something come along and fill the empty space for a while. And now we have it. My t.v. boyfriend has a new program that starts this week. Awesome. Throwdown with Bobby Flay will now be shown on my television at 9 p.m. CST every Thursday night. WOO!!!

I covered Friday already, too. Go me!

Saturday is movie-night with the boyfriend, usually. He's been working a schedule that allows us to have dates on Saturday, so we usually go out to dinner, if we can afford it, and then come home to watch whatever new DVD has come in from Netflix during the week. If we don't have anything, we start skimming through the stuff Tivo has recorded for us on its own. Usually, it's something we can make fun of together, if nothing else. No matter what, it's a good time, since I'm with my man, and that's how I likes it.

Sunday is me-time. I do laundry, clean the house, prepare food for the week...not really a lot of time to pay attention to t.v., so I keep it tuned in to Food Network, and when I have a moment to sit and watch, I do so and generally enjoy it. Now and then, they have a new Iron Chef America on, and that makes me happy. Usually, it's a Food Network Challenge of some sort that I've already seen previously, so it makes for good background to my puttering.

And this post has gotten extremely long and boring. Damn. I'm gonna go now.

Monday, July 10, 2006

I tried posting this picture earlier, and had nothing but trouble doing it. I don't know if Herm Edwards' fingers really are as long as they appear in this photo, but if so, then someone might wanna check into his status of being originally from the planet Earth. Those aren't normal fingers, yo. (Anyone wondering who Herm is, he's the new coach of the Chiefs. This photo was splashed across the front web page for the KC Star today, and I happened to notice his freaky fingers and wanted to get other opinions on them, if I could. Is this a camera angle thing, do you think? Or is he really shaped like this?)

I'm falling asleep at my desk as I enter data into Excel. This isn't good. I'd like to lay down at the end of the hall behind one of the big cushy chairs we have in our office, and just sleep for a few minutes. That's all! Just a few minutes, really. Maybe I should just walk out of the office and go sleep in my car for a bit. I can't imagine I'd be able to sleep for longer than maybe 15 minutes, or so. That's nothing, right? I bet no one would miss me. Well, not right away, anyway. I'm sure that the moment I slipped out, that would be the moment when someone needed a project done RIGHT AWAY, or the left side of their body would just FALL OFF! (Because that's the kind of urgency I deal with sometimes in this office...)

Maybe I can just suck it up and deal for the next hour and a half, right? Fuck, I'm a loser when it comes to the tired feeling!!

I agree with two statements specifically in this article. Science IS strange sometimes, and it will be interesting, to say the least, to see what it reverts to. Mm-hmm…news at it’s best on this one, folks.

I’m very confused this morning. First, I heard France won the World Cup. Now I just saw that Italy was the winner. So which was it? And who the fuck cares? It’s SOCCER, for fuck’s sake!

(Admittedly, my source for the information on who won was the little in between commercial thingies they have on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network. They flashed up a little "congratulations" message to France on their win, and then as I changed the channel to see what was happening on Ham on the Street (which was the hotdog episode again…a very good episode, but I’ve already seen it once all the way through and parts of it several times since then, so I didn’t need to watch it again, really), I saw them flash up a congratulatory message to Italy as well. I got a bit confused at first. And then I remembered that I really don’t give a shit. So it’s ok in the end. Because soccer is neither football nor is it basketball, and so it sucks. How much longer until football season begins? A month? CHRIST ALMIGHTY!!!)

It’s a Monday morning wrap up of all the interesting news tidbits I’ve stumbled across this morning, as I am exhausted, running on a weird high consisting of chlorine fumes, Diet Coke, and sugar from the energy bar thing I had for breakfast. I planned on getting up at 5:15 this morning to go have a swim before work at the new gym I joined. "No one ever uses the pool," the sales guy assured me. And, to be honest, I’ve been there twice at different times of day and had yet to see anyone using the pool…until this morning, of course. So I had to share a lane with marathon swimmer guy who was filling up his last 10 minutes of laps with as many IM’s as possible. (IM’s, for those not in the know, are 4 lengths of the pool of varying stroke styles. Start with butterfly, head into freestyle, then breaststroke, and then backstroke. Although this guy was mixing it up a bit, he was still doing butterfly about every 4 lengths. And it is really difficult to share a lane with someone that is doing butterfly as they whiz by you heading the other direction (or if they come up from behind, to be honest…), as it involves a good pump of the arms out in front of the stroke, and a kick of the feet in tandem at the backend of the stroke. So LOTS of water gets moved about, and it sucked.) He was being very generous in sharing the lane, though, so that was nice. I don’t wanna do that again, though. Next time, I’ll bring extra workout clothes in case I need to change and hit a machine if there are already 2 people in the pool. I got in a half hour of swimming in today, though, and my hips are feeling tight, baby! Man, one forgets so easily what kind of shit the pool can do when one hasn’t swam in a really, really long time.

Now I smell like chlorine, though. I showered, and used pretty smelling hair things and soap, even, and it did nothing to penetrate the evil chlorine monster, it seems. I got to work, and put on some yummy smelling lotion, and now I smell like chlorine and limes. It’s awesome.

Oh, and my plan to wake up at 5:15 was all well and good, except that I woke up at 3:50 this morning, and the boyfriend was still in coma-position on the couch staring at the flickering t.v., so I got him to come to bed, and then I couldn’t fall back asleep. I think I drifted off a bit from 5:05 until 5:15, but I was pretty much up starting at 4. Which just feels so good, let me tell ya! GOD I’m glad to be alive!

AND, it’s raining in KC today. All day! Isn’t that fun? I already couldn’t get yard work done yesterday that needed doing since it decided to rain yesterday as well, and then the lawn hasn’t been mowed because my lawn guy sucks ASS, and now he won’t be able to come until mid-week at the very least, and the dog will be more and more reluctant to go outside and poo in the tall fucking grass, and it’s supposed to really get hot mid-week as well, so we’re looking at our first 105 degree heat indexes by the time Wednesday rolls around, and I’m just so fucking excited to be hanging out in this little place in the world that I’ve fit myself into at this point that I could throw up!

I also got made fun of on Saturday night for my use of the word "fuck" at random the way I do. Is it really that offensive? C’mon, it’s just an adjective (or an adverb, or a noun, or whatever it fits into being, really. It’s just so damned versatile, and I love it!)…everyone should use it as liberally as I do, I think!

Fuck is the new black!!

(Appropriate ending for a post, dontcha think? I leave it at that, then…)

Friday, July 07, 2006

I'm in a foul mood today. Not happy with some work shit. Boyfriend is also going through some work shit. The only thing that has saved my sanity for the past couple of days has been the ability to go home and watch disc 3 of season 1 for Arrested Development. (We watched disc 1 & 2 over the long weekend...) Season 2 is available, but we just added it to the Netflix list last night, dammit! (I know, I know...sometimes, we don't think ahead as well as we should when we're at home.)

Tonight, I shall do hot yoga for the last time (joined a gym over the weekend last weekend, as it is simply more economical in the long run...), and then go home and relax and hermit myself up with the dog. Perhaps some boneless buffalo wings from Chili's will be in order...we'll have to see.

Every foul mood can be dismissed with some boneless buffalo wings, right? HELL yes! (Not that I self-medicate through the use of certain comfort foods...no, no...that's not what I do at all!)

Happy fucking Friday, everyone. Think good thoughts for the boyfriend, if you would. He really is a sweet guy that doesn't deserve to be treated as he is...

Ok, I can understand this statement: "Doughnut also is donut; colour, honour and labour long ago lost the British "u" and the similarly derived theatre and centre have been replaced by the easier-to-sound-out theater and center."

But the following paragraph took me longer to read with the funky phonetic spelling the author used than it would have if they’d spelled the words correctly: "Americans doen't aulwaez go for whut's eezy — witnes th faeluer of th metric sistem to cach on. But propoenents of simpler speling noet that a smatering of aulterd spelingz hav maed th leep into evrydae ues."

Here, test it yourself. I’ll type the paragraph above with the correct spelling of the words, and tell me you don’t read it faster this way: "Americans don’t always go for what’s easy – witness the failure of the metric system to catch on. But proponents of simpler spelling note that a smattering of altered spellings have made the leap into everyday use."

See?

I can’t even figure out what the word "roet" is supposed to be in this sentence: "Lurning English reqierz roet memory rather than lojic, he sed." Is that the word "rote"? Ah…after looking it up, it is. I’d never heard of "rote memory" before, but now it makes more sense.

This is actually something that’s being considered by some as a good idea? People picket the national spelling bee to support the concept? Really? WTF is wrong with those people?

Hey, I’m all for being a bit colloquial, as you all know. I’ll even dumb it up a bit when sending text messages in order to save characters, since I’m long-winded even when texting, believe it or not. (Ok, I’m sure it doesn’t take a big stretch of the imagination to believe that, right?) But spelling "the" with just the "th" in it? What the fuck is that all about? Isn’t that just a sound instead of a word?

I take language seriously. I’ve never liked grammar much, but it’s a necessary evil, IMO. If books were printed with this phonetically spelled language these crazy assholes have thought up for us, I can’t imagine what that would do to my brain. I’ve heard before about how much easier it is for children to learn the language of their countries in places like Germany, France, and Spain, and that’s lovely for them. I found it extremely hard to understand why the French like to flip shit around as much as they do, no matter how much they insisted that it was really an easier way to learn language and that children pick it up very quickly when they’re learning it. Apparently, English is hard for them to learn because of all of our grammatical rules. Well, guess what? I don’t know WHY the sex of a fucking object is important, but for some reason, the French assign it to everything that’s animate and inanimate in their country. A pencil is male, a blanket is female, a train is male, etc, etc…(le crayon, la couverture, le train, etc, etc…) All of that seemed very obtuse to me when I was learning the language and living in their country, and it kind of fucked me up on most of the tests I had to take for my classes over there. I could get around town, have conversations with people in the park or out at restaurants, be able to function in society when buying groceries or traveling to different destinations on weekends, but when it came to being tested for my skill with the concept of their grammar, I flunked just about every test I took. (I got a D on one of the tests given to me. Seriously, I flunked the rest of them…)

So to change our language to make it "easier" for children to learn? Basically, these people want to dumb it up, in my opinion. And it’s the wrong fucking thing to do, my friends.

Goddammit, I should go into politics or become a lawyer or something. Sheeit.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Yesterday, as the boyfriend and I lolled about the house, watching bad movies that TiVo had recorded for us, we decided to get out and go to an actual movie-movie instead. I wanted to see The Devil Wears Prada, so I made a deal with him about going to see Superman if he went to see it with me, which of course I will renege on since it's stupid and I don't wanna see it. So we looked up times, and headed out for a matinee showing.

This movie made me scared for several reasons. (a) I'm afraid that asshole bosses everywhere might actually go see it, and wind up thinking to themselves, "Hey, I like how that lady works! Time to start treating my employees like animals!" (b) I'm afraid that my boss might see it and think to himself, "Hey, I don't treat my admins half as bad as that! Time to kick it up a notch!" (c) I'm afraid that there are women out there who might actually wind up thinking it's ok to not eat, and try to get thinner accordingly. I know that the movie made more fun of it than it did praise it, but regardless, there were a LOT of beautiful, thin women prancing about at all times, jokes made about size 6 women being fat, and talk about how people stopped eating to lose weight. Not a healthy attitude to promote, even if it is done in a sarcastic fashion in a fictional movie. We all know that there are plenty of people who have already seen this film/will soon see this film who will take it as gospel and look at themselves in an ugly light yet again. Sad.Anyway, I'm reminded to write about this movie because my boss just told me to get something done by Monday that is literally impossible to do. He came to me last Tuesday with the project of renewing his passport. He's going to go to Britain, Ireland, and Scotland at the end of July, so he asked me to please get it taken care of. I looked up the how, how much, how long of it all last week, and went back to him with the forms I needed him to fill out and sign. He came back to me the next day and told me to fill out the form for him and then tell him what else he needed to do in order to get it taken care of. I filled out the form, highlighted the line where he needed to sign, and left him a little note on Friday afternoon before I left (yes, this process had taken over 3 days what with his schedule and all), and let him know that we would need to request the expedited processing of the renewal, due to the upcoming date of his trip and everything. He gave it back to me today with a signed, blank check (hmmm....what do I need more? An airplane or a new addition to my house?), and then he dropped by a bit later to tell me that he wants it all back and done by Monday.

Ok, I told him that the expedited processing would take 3 days instead of several weeks, but today is WEDNESDAY. If I send it in overnight tonight, and then request that they send it back to us overnight (in an already paid for envelope I provide them with, of course), then it STILL wouldn't be back here before next Tuesday. I wouldn't be nearly so uncomfy with all of this if I didn't need to send in the original passport in order to renew it. I can't do that if we aren't guaranteed to have a new passport back before he leaves at the end of July, right? Right.

And then I read the expediting instructions on the website. See, I had been looking at the basic instructions for renewal until now, and on that it says, "For faster processing, you may request expedited service. Expedited requests will be processed in three workdays from receipt at a passport agency." I printed out another referal sheet that said to "click here" for more info on how to request expedited service, so I went back out to the website and clicked there, and in that section it says it will take "approximately" 2 weeks for expedited service to be completed when requested.

Shit. So, which is it, I wonder? 3 days, or 2 weeks? And now that I look at that original page, I see the wording says the REQUEST will be processed, and that, in my mind, means that it might take 3 business days for them to start the process instead of the usual 7 - 10, right? So I call their info line, and am assured that it will take about 2 weeks to be processed, so I'm thinking to myself, "Why the hell am I the one stuck doing this shit?" The man needs a personal assistant. Period.

Anyway, he's going to be mad. But I also checked with the customer service chick (Kristen was her name-o) on the necessity of renewing his passport, as it doesn't expire until February of 2007 anyway. He's only going to be travelling from the end of July until August 9th. He should be just fine, right? Right, Kristen said. So that's what I'm sticking with, dammit. I don't know who told him the rule about needing to get it renewed if the trip is happening less than 6 months prior to the expiration date, but it even comes in shy of that 6 month mark, as his trip ends August 9th and his passport doesn't expire until February 18th, so he's safe, and I'm wasting time (AGAIN!) and don't I have REAL work I should be doing so that his company can make more money, or something? Fuckin'ell...

Ok, so it's no Harry Potter transcript, but it's still a difficult boss asking for the impossible to be performed because he hasn't the first clue that it can't be done because the man doesn't do anything himself. I've seen him on a regular basis at the bagel place I stop at on my way to work in the morning sometimes. He goes there for coffee a few times a week, it seems. I don't doubt that the man doesn't know how to make coffee. I also don't doubt that it goes further than that, and he likely doesn't even know how to buy coffee, or one of those "coffee-making-thingies". Seriously.

Can I just say now how grateful I am to have come from a family that taught me not only how to make money but also how to spend it properly? If I were my boss, I would hire myself a proper part-time personal assistant. Because I'm smart enough to know that the admins in my office at the company I've retired from, but still haunt are there to do work for the company. I'm happy to send flowers to his mom now and then, but managing his insurance info? C'mon. Going a little far, me thinks...

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Hanging out with the dog tonight, spending some time with her so she knows that we love her and don't intend for her to live her life out in a small box in the treadmill room, I was reminded that I haven't posted any updated photos of her as of late. So here ya go.

This one is one of her looking like she's smiling. But what she's really doing is preparing to bite me. As usual. (It doesn't hurt when she bites, btw...she's being playful, and I'm looking forward to her finding new ways to be playful once we get her into a training class. And after we have her hooha snipped sufficiently. Mwahahahahaha!!!)Ok, and blogger has decided to arbitrarily put my pics in an order it decided on over the order I requested. Great. Ok, well, today I went down to the dead boyfriend's gravesite to pay my annual respects to him and all the families that surround him at the cemetary in Arvonia. It's very peaceful and beautiful there. Always a heavy breeze blowing, and usually a sunny, bright, blue sky overhead. Today was no different than the last 5 years. It was a really top-notch day. Except for being surrounded by all the dead people, of course.

This is a pic of the center lane that leads down the middle of the cemetary. It really is very pretty there...

Oh...we're back on Izzy now, eh? Alright. So here's a good picture of how big the dog has gotten over the past couple of months. She used to just reach the middle of the cushion when she laid like that. Now she takes up the whole damned thing. She likes to get into my spot, in particular, whenever I get up to fuss about or grab a bottle of water or another glass of wine, and then I come back and she sits in my spot and looks at me with this "What? I'm an innocent little dog. I can sit wherever I want, you cow. Now fetch me another thing to chew on, won't you? Gracias." look on her face. (The "gracias" bit must be her bit of chihuahua she has in her...I dunno.) I don't know how I got her to hold so still for long enough to take a picture of her while she was awake. Seriously...I must've subconsciously hypnotized her with an episode of Boy Meets Grill or something. I have to figure out how to do that again, dammit...

In case anyone was wondering, here's what she used to look like. Just 2 months ago. When she only weighed 6 pounds. Those were really awesome days, in retrospect...Ah, and back at the cemetary again. This is a shot of the rear middle left field at the cemetary. I think. It's been a long day, so I really don't remember for sure, and none of you will ever find the cemetary anyway, so sure...it's the rear middle left field, alright. Just like I said it was in the first place. (Hm. Might actually be the rear middle right field. DAMMIT!)And my weekend continues tomorrow in relative peace and quiet. I'm planning on heading to the hot yoga class at 3, and then hopefully getting over to the Moose for a visit after that, but we'll see. Everyone's usually gone by 5, so I don't know if there's any point to trying to meet up with people there if it's not gonna be until after 6 before I can get there. Might just be another quiet evening at home. Which is just fine with me, really...

Hope everyone is having a safe holiday weekend! Don't go blowing any appendages off with M-80's, kay? Bah!